On November 10, Europol announced the arrest of a citizen of Russia involved in the attacks of the LockBit program program. The suspect was arrested on October 26 in Ontario (Canada) after the investigation, which lasted more than 2.5 years.
The investigation was conducted by the national gendarmerie of France with the assistance of the European Center for Cybercrime Europol (EC3), the FBI and the Royal Horse Police of Canada (RCMP).
by data 33-year-old Mikhail Vasiliev, who has dual citizenship of Russia and Canada, was charged with a conspiracy to transfer the requirements for redemption and intentionally damage to protected computers. In case of guilt, he faces up to 5 years in prison. He currently expects extradition to the United States for the alleged participation in the global campaign of extortionists Lockbit.
According to the criminal lawsuit . A searches of his house in August 2022, Canadian law enforcement agencies discovered reports of messages in the TOX messenger with the representative of LockBit “LockBitsupp”, which contained instructions on how to deploy Lockbit Lockbit Linux/ESXI source and source code of malicious software.
In addition, “Computer screen photos were found with accounting data for various services of the company’s employees in Canada, which was attacked by Lockbit in January 2022.”
Law enforcement officers also seized 8 computers and 32 external hard drives from the house of the suspect, 2 units of firearms and cryptocurrency in the amount of 400 thousand euros.
Europol added that this Lockbit operator was one of the important goals of Europol because of his participation in numerous high-profile extortion attacks. ” The arrested is known for his large redemption requirements – from 5 to 70 million euros. Although the Europol describes the suspect as the “operator” of the LockBit program, he is most likely an affiliated person, and not the head of the grouping operations.